#because its been my go-to game for like a decade god its so fun

[tornblackedgcs]

can say what's a little weird about stranger things being so popular and using dnd stuff?

the random people i have on facebook and such from middle school using terms like vecna and sharing the theory of eddie becoming kas the bloody-handed

people who have thought dnd was made up for the show (i kid you not, real conversation i had with someone) saying these things

[cyverrieee]

[1] WITH A COSPLAYER!YUU WHO SADLY ENDED UP IN TWISTED WONDERLAND WHILE IN COSPLAY...

01 ➳ I might expload if i keep on thinking about this juicy

brainrot eating my brain into BITS anyways..

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ᴏɴᴇ ᴜɴғᴀɪᴛʜғᴜʟ ᴅᴀʏ, ᴀ ᴅᴀʏ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ɢᴏ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴɪᴍᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴠᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ɪs ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ sᴜᴅᴅᴇɴʟʏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʀᴀɴsᴘᴏʀᴛᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛᴡɪsᴛᴇᴅ ᴡᴏɴᴅᴇʀʟᴀɴᴅ! ᴡʜᴀᴛ's ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴇʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄᴏsᴘʟᴀʏ. ɴᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀᴡᴋᴡᴀʀᴅʟʏ sᴛᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀs ᴄᴏɴғᴜsᴇᴅ ᴇʏᴇs ɢᴀᴢᴇ ᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ...

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ʀɪᴅᴅʟᴇ ʀᴏsᴇʜᴇᴀʀᴛs

Now you were suddenly transported into twisted wonderland in your Riddle Rosehearts cosplay. This was supposed to be the day you were going to have a fun convention day with your friends who cosplayed the other Heartslabyul members. Now that you literally get to face the actual Riddle Rosehearts. You were definitely fuming with embarrassment! You laughed uncannily, the other members of Heartslabyul still incoherent shock. Especially Ace

You try to blabber out some excuses WHY you were wearing Riddle's dorm outfit! Riddle was much confused but slightly impressed. The makeup was nice, the styling of the wig was impressive. Especially the details in his atrocious outfit (if you handmade it of course).

God damnit! You were basically dying in embarrassment, you can't possibly say to Riddle that he is a fictional character in a game! No that knowledge is definitely unbearable to someone like him. But you couldn't find anymore words to describe your current predicament; your only chance was to tell.. Half of the truth!

"W-Well.. Your a famous favorite... Character back in my.. World! People loved your personality, they find you.. "

Now how to describe this? How the hell do you say something about it! Riddle was shocked. He wasn't expecting people to like his personality knowing how stern he was before his overblot.. Or even now!

You mostly spend the following hours in your Riddle cosplay, what would make it even funnier is when you and riddle would walk together, you two look the same but the only difference was in height. Obviously you were taller than Riddle. But you really slayed in those heels!

Of course, when you finally took off your Riddle cosplay was when he actually saw you. He felt like he got tricked because aint no wait some of your features just disappeared! (Your makeup skills were too good, professional catfisher!..)

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ʟᴇᴏɴᴀ ᴋɪɴɢsᴄʜᴏʟᴀʀ

Well shit. This is awkward. Its not everyday you face the character you were literally cosplaying as... You found feel a rush of embarrassment go through your head. You were wearing the fairy gala outfit of Leona with a high ponytail (because before being suddenly sucked into Twisted Wonderland. You were sweating in your cosplay and decided to put your wig up in a ponytail because it was thick)

Leona only looked at you and laughed. Okay now, this was more embarrassing than you expected. Your cosplay was a bit incomplete if you could say. You couldn't find any damn white shoes to match the outfit so EARNESTLY and EVEN SO DESPERATELY asked your own mother to borrow her silly heels that she wore on her wedding, but fuck that was like... More than a decade, thats for sure. Somehow it kinda fits you, same shoe size or whatever. It definitely caught Leona's attention knowing how you're almost at his height, yet just kick off a few more centimeters then you'll reach it!

Ruggie feels constipated seeing two Leonas sit in one room. Goddamit! Now he has to grab for two of them! Oh? One of them is real nice for no absolute reason? A nice Leona feels like a nightmare, but he'll take wha he can get. Since you can't get out of your silly cosplay, you were forcibly going around the campus with your fairy gala cosplay. A bit embarrassing but it has a few perks, people who didnt knew it was the fake Leona would have had probably been shaling their boots off. A little threatening to have something wont hurt right? Nahh, they wont know anyways. You were a Ruggie in disguise.

Sometimes, Leona would point details you missed. Like oh! You forgot this or you literally forgot to add that. He just wanted to seen as a perfect piece of art. If your cosplay is 100% handmade, he is secretly impressed by your dedication and motivation. What? This took you 6 months? HALF A YEAR? His respect kinda went up a bit. If you cosplay with your friends and family, maybe tell some stories about you and your friend/cousin/sibling dressing up as Falena and doing the scene from Lion King with your younger sibling/short friend. "Whats the Lion King Scene?" All the braincells probably left out of your brain because oh my fucking god, all you hear in your head is "LONG LIVE THE KING.." and you know.. yeah... You went silent after that, you cannot say that. Moving on!

When Leona saw you out of your cosplay, he was still secretly impressed over your makeup skills; not one for makeup himself but he just finds that you can literally become another person just with makeup impressive but he wont dare say it out loud. Professional catfisher am i right?

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ᴀᴢᴜʟ ᴀsʜᴇɴɢʀᴏᴛᴛᴏ

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Oh you cosplayed Azul? Hes fine on the outside but screaming in the inside. If the world allows you, you might hear him scream.

Jade and Floyd finds you pretty cool. You cosplayed Azul and you looked so silly and cool in it!

If you were a chubby cosplayer, Azul will scream at this point. An actual scream (not because hes scared or anything. Hes having a plentiful of positive emotions rushing through his brain.)

He will check your cosplay too! Checking every detail. Saying this like "impressive" "amazing labor!" He would definitely be shock on how much time it took you , even if his outfit is easily to replicate. Your broke ass decided to take it the hard way andake it by scratch because no money will be wasted generously.

Please show your Azul impression. He actually kinda wants to see it. If you do silly things in your Azul cosplay. He's gonna be slightly embarrassed but at some point, he might get used to it.

DID I HEAR THAT CLEARLY?! YOU MADE A PROP OF AZUL'S GOLDEN CONTRACT?! He looks at it with awe. Even though it just glossy yellow paper with some writings, its still very nice you went this far for something as someone like him.

You two will roam the hallways asking for contracts now! Just kidding (if you want to :3)

When Azul saw you without your cosplay, he still finds you amazing in your skills of makeup and stylization. Not everyone can transform themselves into another person with makeup and a measly brush no?

The professional catfisher strikes again!

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➥ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ? ғᴇᴇʟ ғʀᴇᴇ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢ ᴏʀ ʜᴇᴄᴋ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ʜᴇʜᴇ!

! ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ғᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ᴛᴏ sᴛᴀʏ ʜᴇᴀʟᴛʜʏ! ᴅʀɪɴᴋ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴇᴀᴛ ғᴏᴏᴅ ᴀᴄᴄᴏʀᴅɪɴɢʟʏ !

➳ [2] 𝘒𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘮, 𝘝𝘪𝘭, 𝘐𝘥𝘪𝘢, 𝘔𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴

ʙᴇʟᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ'ʟʟ sᴇᴇ ᴍʏ ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ!

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ!

[ironunderstands]

Would be waiting for acheron brainrot ramble here

Is it time for Acheron brainrot ramble? It’s time for Acheron brainrot ramble. Prepare for the most stream of consciousness post ever, I had so much fun writing this she has taken over my consciousness and puppeted me for my own ends, and commanded me to demonstrate how peak she really is. So enjoy, hopefully I can get others to love Acheron just as much as I do.

I think there are three reasons why I like Acheron 1) she’s really fucking cool 2) I love characters who guide/mentor others 3) She’s charming as hell.

Hoyo you aren’t allowed to make characters this good.

The music in her trailer, her aesthetic, the amount of fire fucking one liners. THE COLOR RED (I’ll get into it)

“Find me, your end, my origin.” Who cooked here who wrote this who’s the chef please where’s the restaurant I’m eating this up

“On the still waters of oblivion, I guide the wandering souls” GRAHAJDJWJKSSW YES YOU DO OH MY GOD I CANT PUT INTO WORDS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS LINE SHUT UP EVERYONE SHUT UP. Like she literally is at the edge of existence fighting to help others find their future, I just. RAAAA

SHE CUTS A BLACK HOLE IN HALF?? HUHH AUGHH a black hole that’s the manifestation of meaninglessness in the universe, and she goes “nah” and fucking obliterates it?!!?

“I weep for the departed” Those who have died are gone, and slowly losing themselves even further. For decades, centuries, millennia, even, Acheron has witnessed this, and still cries for them, still guides them to the other side, even if the task itself is meaningless, because someone should do it, someone has to do it, and that someone is HER.

She saves Aventurine, she saves the Trailblazer, she saves the entirity of Penacony. Someone blessed by the manifestation of nonexistent dedicates her life to giving others a reason to live.

Aventurine asks her why people should bother living, if the dice are always weighted in a certain outcome, then why should we keep going? Aventurine asks her why people should bother living if the universe is meaningless?

He fully expects her to say people shouldn’t.

But Acheron doesn’t do that. The dice are weighted against us. Not just in game, but in reality itself. We will all die, you will die, the people you care about will die, I might die, it remains to be seen. However, before that inevitable ending, before the curtain finally closes, we have so many choices to make. If the ending is the same for everyone, it doesn’t matter, and Acheron tells Aventurine this.

Because the Nihility envelops everyone equally, the universe is equally meaningless for everyone, nobody is the special someone destined to have a destiny. Therefore, it doesn’t matter. Aventurine has no reason to live. And Aventurine has no reason not to live. She tells him his time hasn’t come, because it hasn’t. Until that dice roll, until his final breath, Aventurine can still make choices and he can still choose to live for himself, and that’s the answer Acheron gives him.

But she knows that’s not enough. Aventurine will still struggle to live for himself, after all he’s been through, after the mountain of expectations and hopes and dreams piled onto him. So she tells him his friend has already given him the answer. Aventurine pulls out the note written by Dr. Ratio. It doesn’t give him a plan, doesn’t inform him of what expectations he has for him, doesn’t list every single reason why Aventurine should keep going. Ratio tells Aventurine to stay alive and keep on living, because he doesn’t need anything more than that, there isn’t anything more than that. Her caring about Aventurine, Ratio caring about Aventurine, that’s enough to keep him going, because other peoples love is enough of a reason to exist, universe be damned.

existing. The Existence. AKSJAKKSNDKKWEN.

Like you don’t understand, you don’t understand. ACHERON IS ENVELOPED IN THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE UNIVERSE BEFORE SHE FINDS ITS EXISTENCE, ITS VALUE, ITS MEANING. Even if it can never be achieved, Acheron is willing to destroy herself completely as she walks farther and farther into the Nihility trying to find the Existence, even if it takes every from her she will find it. Only by giving up her existence can Acheron find the Existence and kill the Nihility. Only by sacrificing her own life and giving up her own meaning can she give it to others.

Red. She tells the trailblazer that when they can no longer see the world in anything but black and white, there will be a brief flash of Red for them.

Red is the Existence. Red is the color of her blade that allowed her to cut that black hole in half. Red is the only color left when she unsheathes her sword. Red is the color of the tears she cries. Red is the color of the words she speaks to us that truly matter.

Red is the color she cuts into reality. In a world of black and white, in which all the light has been swallowed by IX, and the path ahead is blurry, Acheron illuminates the universe’s future in bright red, creating color, creating life, creating Existence in a world devoid of it.

We will encounter the Nihility along our journey, just as we would encounter every other aeon. The world will seem meaningless, and it will be devoid of color, but when the Trailblazer needs it the most, there will be Red. A reason to keep going, a reason to exist, a reason to keep on Trailblazing, because the path of the Trailblaze’s end is also at the Existence, and we will meet Acheron there again. Whether that color will come from us or her remains to be seen, but it will be there for us when we need it.

However, I think we/the Trailblazer will be alone. As that flash of red isn’t the only thing Acheron tells the Trailblazer.

Only when left alone can people pick themselves up. Only when help is absent can people truly fight for themselves. Only when you are alone, can you truly understand your existence.

That doesn’t mean other people don’t matter, that you have to walk the world alone, that you can only exist devoid of others. Quite the opposite actually, other people can be your reason to exist, something to help keep you going. Acheron knows this, which is why she directs Aventurine to Ratio’s note. That’s the meaning he can find in a meaningless universe.

Moreover, people help each other, they provide the tools other people need to exist, the anchors that ground people in reality, the reason why you might want to wake up in the morning, they create the things and ideas that you need and enjoy. It’s when you are ripped of these comforts, stripped of the things that make you want to keep going, is when people fight for their existence. As in a world devoid of everything, can you truly appreciate the things you have, and acknowledge that since there is now nothing, you are the only something. When there is no one there to save them, fools pick themselves up, and that is Existence.

I love Acheron. I love her silly amnesiac tendencies, I love her beautiful design, I love that she’s a Mei counterpart, but most of all, I love what she stands for.

Acheron is the indomitable human spirit personified, she quite literally chooses to exist in the face of absolute nothing. When the world loses all color, does she paint reality in a bright red with her sword, writing her own destiny with each and every slash.

And for that, I will always adore her.

[cuubism]

for @magnusbae

--

“Hob Gadling,” Dream says, and there’s a laugh deep in it, hidden in his eyes. “Am I to understand you’ve been engaging in petty theft?”

“I used to rob people on the road, and this surprises you?” says Hob, leaning against his kitchen counter. Then holds up a hand before Dream can respond. “Now, to be clear, my highwayman days are behind me. I’ve evolved. I’ve no interest in hurting people over riches. Also, would be bloody difficult to commit highway robbery nowadays.”

“I see you’ve thought it through,” says Dream from where he’s still lingering in the kitchen doorway. He clearly finds all of this highly amusing.

“I have, and rest assured, this theft was by no means petty. I’m pretty sure this is considered grand larceny.”

“Ah. I see it is no fun for you if decades of prison time are not on the line,” says Dream.

Hob winks at him. “Would you really let me go to prison for decades?”

Dream raises a haughty eyebrow. “I am your get-out-of-jail-free card?”

“Not getting caught is my get-out-of-jail-free card. You think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think I would do this for a lark without a plan?”

“Speaking frankly?” says Dream. “Yes.”

Hob laughs. “Alright, caught. But in my defense! It was for an important reason.”

Dream finally steps properly into the kitchen. “And what reason is that? I know you have no need for riches.”

“Wasn’t about need. Was only about charm. And getting in your good graces. And being the most irresistible and rakish boyfriend I can. Don’t think I didn’t see the way you looked at me at that first, portentous meeting.”

He lets Dream step in, closer and closer, like a predator with its prey. Doesn’t move. “You wish to give me the scrappy bandit I apparently so desired back then?”

“No apparently about it,” says Hob, and oh, it’s fun to be bold with Dream, now that he feels reasonably sure of not scaring him off. “But it’s okay, because I was even more weak for the prissy lord that you were. You know how much you could have gotten me to do if only you’d asked?”

Dream is standing right before him now, crowding him against the counter. His eyes gleam in the dark. “Does that include grand larceny?”

Hob laughs and lays his hands on his sides, feeling the taught realness of him, so much more dangerous than he’d thought of the lord he’d met in that tavern, and so much more glorious for it. “And more.”

He fishes the ruby from his pocket, letting it dangle on its long chain and catch the kitchen lights. He dips his head low as he holds it out to Dream. “A token of my affection. For my lord.”

Dream lets the gem fall into his palm, examining the fine cut of it. It doesn’t have the darkness, the strange angles of his now-broken dreamstone, but it’s still a gorgeous gem. Deep wine red, bottomless depths within the facets. Like Dream himself.

“A token?” He echoes, lips tugging up in a smile. “A courtly gift for one you have no need to court?”

“A small gift for one I am endlessly devoted to,” Hob says, and Dream’s eyes meet his again. There’s a smile in them, now, a real one. The gem is worth a bloody fortune, but Dream cares not for the monetary value of things. This is about the symbol, the game, the effort of it, and it seems it’s landed.

He does like pretty things, too. Hob knows it well.

“Put it on me, then,” Dream says.

He ducks his head for Hob to clasp the chain around the back of his neck. Hob kisses his forehead when he’s done.

The ruby sits against his breastbone, shining against the bare skin at the center of the deep vee in his shirt.

Hob squints. He could have sworn Dream was wearing something with more coverage when he arrived. “Did you… change your shirt?”

Dream smirks. “Perhaps. Such art requires its proper canvas.”

“Cheeky. You’re right, though.” Hob admires it on him, and sighs. So worth it.

Dream kisses his cheek, like they really are courting and he’s shyly accepting the gift. Hob takes hold of his face and pulls him into a proper one, one that’ll leave his lips as red as the gem. God, he better be able to convince Dream into wearing that and nothing else in bed. That sounds like a good way to die, if he ever were to choose one.

“How’d you find out about this, anyway?” he asks, letting his hands wander to Dream’s hair to keep him close.

“Matthew. He admitted that he helped you.” He doesn’t sound too upset about it, fortunately, for Matthew’s sake.

Hob sighs. “I tried to keep his involvement quiet. Blabbermouth.”

“He had fun, apparently,” says Dream wryly.

“Hope you won’t punish him too much.”

Dream smirks. “Just a little.”

“Going to punish me, then?” Hob says. It's meant to be challenging but he can’t keep the grin off his face.

Dream pushes him against the counter, hands pressed tight to his hips. “Hmm.” His voice rumbles through Hob’s body. His eyes are alight with fondness and danger both, and a shiver runs up Hob’s spine. “Just a little.”

[neoflect]

sharing some of my disorganized jojo musical thoughts now that ive had a week to sit on it and ive rewatched it several times over. i intended to wait to publish something like this until a subtitled version was available, but im not seeing any indication that thats happening any time soon so for now youll have to deal with my loose interpretations from my extremely rudimentary and rusty japanese… so take what i have to say about the finer points of characterization with a grain of salt. gratuitous spoilers below obviously, both for the original source material and the changes made in the stage production

my feelings are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. of course there are things i can criticize or that i would have personally done differently but oh man… i have literally not thought about anything besides this fucking show for a week. im 100% confident in saying this is a better adaptation of the source material than the tv anime. sorry to the davidpro staff, i respect their hard work and their love for jojo and their dedication to what is by any metric a pretty difficult property to adapt off of the page, but i dont know if i can ever forgive them for leaving half of the first episode’s storyboard on the cutting room floor in order to fit a standard half-hour tv slot, especially considering that what they cut is some of the really crucial character-building stuff. happily those scenes are not only reproduced in the stage version, some of them are expanded upon!

with the quick disclaimer that i’ve only managed to get my hands on the final 4/14 performance with shotaro arisawa and yoshihisa higashiyama, from what i’ve seen the casting is perfect. i’m sure there’s a rip of the 4/13 performance somewhere (i’ve seen clips) but i haven’t been able to find one… every single performer knocks it out of the fucking park, the cast chemistry is incredible and even the minor characters are loaded with charisma. and mamoru miyano… my god… mamoru miyano i owe you an apology. i was not familiar with your game. of course hes been killing it for decades at this point but i had soured on him a little bit recently because i felt like he was overcast in everything and i just didnt connect with his dnt reinhard at all, so when the casting was initially announced back in august i was underwhelmed, and of course my standards for the dio role in particular were astronomically high… i’ll go more into detail later in the post because i have so so many things to say about dio’s characterization here but mamoru miyano’s performance is like, life-changing. i had impossible expectations and he exceeded them.

sorry if im gushing. i am a hater by nature. its unusual for me to be so thoroughly pleased with something. im not even a musical theater guy. these are strange new feelings for me.

just to balance things out i’ll talk about a couple of the things that didn’t really work for me: first of all, the music is just ok. my initial draft of this post called the music “bad” but three additional viewings later i have warmed up to some of the songs. i don’t know if this is a shortcoming by dove attia as the composer or if it’s just me, as i said i’m not a musical guy and a lot of the genre conventions of musical theatre are not really the things i look for in music that i enjoy, but like… even at their worst they are serviceable. nothing here is sonically unpleasant to me. high points are “resolve of the ripple” (zeppeli’s hamon training song, a jazzy swing number - it’s simply catchy and fun to listen to) and the closer “phantom blood” (a sweeping ballad that reprises the earlier “light and darkness”/”golden spirit” leitmotifs into an epic duet between jonathan and dio as they join hands and walk off into the darkness together… made me cry! i wont lie! on every single one of my numerous viewings this one got me misty eyed!)

wait i forgot this is supposed to be the part where i’m being critical. ok my most loathed song in the musical is “dio’s world”. sorry dio nation. it doesn’t really work for me. i think this might be a case of my standards/expectations being too impossibly high because it’s not even really the worst song in the whole thing. and of course miyano eats it up so it’s not really his fault. i just find it kind of underwhelming… i find the melody a little grating, it’s kind of just a generic rock number, it’s just missing a particular je ne sais quoi…. the essence of dio isn’t there… lyrically though i am obsessed with the premise of dio recruiting his minions by selling himself as a kind of social revolutionary who is upending and inverting the brutal hierarchy of post-industrial victorian society with zombie blood magic. you win some you lose some.

the second sticking point for me is the costumes. they’re perfectly serviceable… adequate… but i mean when it comes to jojo “serviceable” and “adequate�� costume design obviously falls well below what’s expected, right? a lot of the outfits have kind of a boxy, almost flat-looking kind of unflattering fit on the actors, which if i wanted to be generous i could attribute to the challenge of bridging the gap between these frail slender musical theater twinks and the two-meter-tall 250lb roided-out beefcakes theyre meant to be embodying. (bearing this discrepancy in mind a lot of the insane martial arts stuff in the second act doesn’t really land with the oomph that it should, but i also understand logistically why this kind of casting is not practical, and all things considered i think shotaro arisawa does a really incredible job of embodying jonathan joestar even though he kind of looks like i could snap him in half over my knee like a twig. he’s very cute. so i’m not mad about it.) of course, again, logistically, i understand that in a stage musical production, where actors only have minutes to complete costume changes, some sacrifices have to be made to the creative vision in the name of practicality. nevertheless this is jojos bizarre adventure!! i want to see some fucking baubles!!!!!!

which is all to say that… after carefully considering it for some weeks… i still have extremely mixed feelings about dio’s grink ass feather bathrobe look. it’s not that i dont think its something he could wear (the concept of dio lounging around in his gothic vampire palace doing re-animator style body horror experiments on the local wildlife in this “officer i have no idea what happened to my husband”-ass nightgown is nothing short of hysterical to me) but then he wears it into combat and i felt a little disappointed… it has the same unflattering fit issue as the other outfits in the show, and it is just such an un-araki-like design… where are the gaudy color combinations? the bizarre geometric patterns? the tease of an exposed boob/thigh/midriff? erina gets a stage-original dress design that i have fewer issues with because the excessive pleats and ruffles have more of an araki-esque sensibility, but every time i look at dio’s robe it feels like there’s something missing.  i’m going to choose to be nice about it because it’s not at all a deal breaker and, again, mamoru miyano devours the look. it’s fine. it’s always fun to have a new dio outfit. if anything, the fact that the blu-rays are being marketed as “2024 cast version” gives me hope for the possibility of a future production with a new vision for the costume design. (although the fact that this was such a difficult production - with stunts and pyrotechnics and moving setpieces - that its entire first week was cancelled indicates to me that the prospects for a future production from a different company are impossibly slim. i guess there’s always hope?)

in terms of the writing and the changes that were made from the original narrative, honestly i don’t really have an issue with anything that was cut. sorry if there are any diehard stans of Poco’s Unnamed Sister out there who are steamed that their favorite minor late phantom blood character got the axe, i kind of understand how you feel because i’ve been malding over david pro cutting the Danny Lore for eleven years, but i think it was the right choice and the story flows so much better. the real juicy meat at the core of phantom blood as a narrative and the thing that brings it head and shoulders above so much of the rest of jjba is the character-driven drama - that deliciously pulpy victorian gothic family tragedy - and the relationship between jonathan and dio. the musical beefs up the character drama and slims down the action-driven second half by trimming out the extraneous battles. the only real downside i see to this is that the absence of tompetty and his prophecy makes zeppeli’s arc and death feel INSANELY abrupt, but tbf that’s not a deal breaker for me. sorry zeppeli. you were born to die.

okay. okay. i think 1500 words into the post is enough fucking around so let’s talk about the real reason why you and i both know we’re here

musical dio is SO fucking sad. he’s positively wretched, you guys. he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone and forced to eat cement when he was six. he cries even more than he does in the source material and even when he’s not crying he frequently delivers his lines as though he is moments away from bursting into tears. back when the musical first opened i was snooping on the reactions on jpn twitter and one commenter said they could see miyano’s tears and snot from the nosebleeds even without opera glasses, a remark i initially assumed was hyperbole but that i now think probably was not. araki’s dio is certainly tortured and a deeply pathetic crybaby beneath all the cruelty and posturing, but changes in the musical and miyano’s embodiment of the character bring this pathos to the fore. he is literally haunted: dario’s ghost lingers, a manifestation of all of dio’s traumas and insecurities that emerges from the recesses of his memory to taunt him with the reminder that he will always be his father’s son, all the way up until the very minute that jonathan breaks down the door to his vampire lair. i am OBSESSED with this - not only for the obvious reason that i delight in dio’s suffering personally but also because kong kuwata is a delight and he fucking kills it every time. also lends itself to a category 10 leitmotif moment at the top of the second act when dio emerges from the charred ruins of the joestar estate singing dario’s theme and calling out to jonathan - if i had to pinpoint this is probably the moment when this musical stuck for me as the Real Deal. they Get It.

the first solo number in the show is dio’s disney princess I Want song (amazingly, simply titled “dio”) where he weeps for his late mother and his wretched lot in life, and then - in a creative decision that made me clap my hands and hoot and holler at my screen in real life - there is a reprise of this number (delivered, naturally, through tears) when dio is almost arrested for murder and decides to become a vampire instead. so there’s this amazing hopeful uplifting inspirational orchestral music accompanying the onstage action of dio ruthlessly slaying jonathan’s dad and then getting pumped full of lead by a bunch of cops. it is brilliant. 10/10 no notes. it’s moments like this that i think really sell the “softening” of dio in the stage version for me, even though i am historically Not A Fan of fanworks that take a similar angle - like, yes, he is sad, but specifically he is narcissistically obsessed with the spectacle of his own suffering, he is boiling over with bitterness and rage for everyone around him who (by his own estimation) could never hope to have suffered as much as he has. this sensitivity and self-pity he wallows in are not expressions of a guilty conscience or a desire to change - they’re entirely the opposite - every cruel and monstrous deed dio commits is always justified to himself because he is simply the saddest little boy who has ever existed. he has been done wrong by the world and so there is no limit to the depravity he may reasonably respond with. i’ve seen several commenters describe this as a drastically different interpretation of the character from araki’s dio (and someone told me on twitter that mamoru miyano himself has also said this, but i cba to go digging for an actual source so take it with a grain of salt?), but i… dont think thats the case! dio’s obsession with his own weakness and his self-perception as the eternal underdog (as compared to jonathan) are certainly more exaggerated in miyano’s performance, but i don’t think this is an angle to the character that’s been manufactured out of whole cloth. the genre conventions of the stage musical force the melodrama up to eleven and dio’s incredibly repressed angst is the most rich vein to mine for that. hair-trigger sadist dio is still here, it’s the same guy, he’s still killing people mercilessly, you’re just getting to see him sing a big ballad about his feelings instead of confining those to an internal monologue.

if anything, the exaggeration of dio’s pathetic/cowardly/crybaby traits combined with his megalomaniacal aspirations and bottomless well of cruelty is just right. it’s perfect. fucking around, finding out, and then trying to weasel his way out of the consequences with crocodile tears just so you don’t see him drawing his knife to cut you clean open… yeah. thats the stuff. thats my one true blorbo. sad to say i will love him for ten thousand years.

i think that might be all i have to say… or at least all i feel like saying here… most likely ill come back and edit this post later. i certainly have some additional thoughts and some more esoteric/controversial takes but they’re not suited for a public blog. real ones will understand. im keeping my eyes peeled for somebody to translate this thing but to be frank i am kind of enjoying this little corner of fandom as it is right now: just the asians and the true hardcore phantom blood phreaks. i have not had this much fun in jojo fandom in almost a fucking decade. as soon as somebody publishes an english version my timelines going to get flooded with all the most deeply annoying “kono dio da” “speedwagon waifu” reddit guys and 15 year olds and my suffering will proceed. unfortunately this is my lot in life and i am doomed to be here forever because dio put a worm in my brain

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

Hi hi!

I loved your rants on the Traveler and read your pinned post and was just curious to hear about your destiny OCs (or anything else you want to talk about honestly)! Please ramble as it's always a good time to read to have someone go on in detail about their interests.

Light be with you!

Greetings!!!

This was such a sweet message and I’m delighted that you found an interest in the things I discuss on this blog!!! Thank you so much for the kind words and for wanting to hear about my ocs!!

Okay so we have- *I fall down a comically long flight of stairs with my box of ocs as they go everywhere* Sorry, sorry!

Truth be told, I have a LOT of ocs from all the different species and societies of Destiny as I have been into the game for practically two-thirds of my life, more than I can possibly disclose in just one post (especially because I can talk forever about these things!!)

So, I thought it would be fun if I described my many characters and their stories as silly blog/news titles and opening statements! This is only a small handful of my ocs, but if you guys want more or see one idea you’d like to hear more of, I’ll consider posting additional content of them!

Here we go:

Infamous deathsinger-school drop out meets agoraphobic Eliksni captain at Eliksni-Hive bar, requires his and his sardonic, elder dreg‘s protection against her vengeful knight sister.

Small Uluran girl tends to her family farm with her Psion in-house caretaker, finds out the only thing more troubling than a poor harvest is Torobatl politics as her caretaker brings his fragile partner into the household.

Local Last City ghost sees success at the opening of her new therapy café despite not having hands and only employing other guardian-less ghosts.

Top ten activities to do with the goat your Witness does not approve of, but your acolytes adore! (Number 4 will certainly unleash its rage!)

BREAKING: Awoken guardian and her exo best friend are kicked out of Spider‘s Palace after starting a drunken fight over a gambling dispute for the 20th time. “I remember being young, desired, out until dawn, and unbothered by responsibilities” says their middle-aged Psion fiduciary.

This Vex harpy enjoys listening to a vagrant exo hunter play his flute and doesn’t enjoy Minotaurs at all according to the vagrant hunter that menacingly approached us.

EXCLUSIVE: We interviewed the Young Wolf on why they continue to slay gods and they said “There really isn’t much else to do and my only friends are Ghost and Crow”.

Hundreds dead and thousands more injured after a fairy betrayal in the Court of Understanding left the Great Navigator paranoid that necromancy was spreading amongst his closest circle (A fairy is a Hive class I invented that is akin to court jesters for the upper class, especially the Osmium siblings. They are light-weight and agile, possessing the ability to float, while also wielding long-range weaponry. I definitely plan to explain this concept in the future and perhaps provide artwork for them!)

Long lost sibling of the architect of The Witness found in reclusive cabin with non-verbal child, told us to “Fuck off” and “Tell that disturbed prophet I want nothing to do with them”.

How to answer your young child when they start asking questions like “Why do our neighbors have four arms?” and “If the Final Shape happens, do I still have to go to school?”: A guide written by an average Last City dad with a curious daughter.

Whats better than the daughter of a baron and a cynical knight running away to live a life of piracy and blasphemy together? Studies show it’s the daughter of a baron and a cynical knight doing all of that AND being lesbians.

Renowned Hive romantic novelist takes acolyte playwright under his wing after their work reaches acclaim in the Court of War for its depiction of the Eater of Hope’s trials with redemption and love. “This will definitely win back the hat loving wizard that I had spawn with” the novelist claimed as he flipped his decadent cape.

Old Psion yells “All paracasual beings need to die in their rotting entitlement, especially that red bloated bastard and that big eyed freak he calls ‘My Mistress’!”and immediately dies after telling his aids about his time spent directly under Nezarec.

HEARTWARMING: This Lubraen stalker welcomes newcomers by giving them a tour around the city and making their bigotry apparent.

Is this the style of the summer? Qugu person sports new curled tendril mane as they embrace the end of everything.

She’s a beefy wizard, he’s a scrawny knight, they are irritating rivals: The couple that fell in love again after becoming lucent thanks to their devoted spawn.

Potential assassin of the Witness found and held under that black liquid it comes out of until their will falters. “I had to do something to protect them. No one protected my planet. I didn’t care how much I’d pay for it” stated the now-disciple fish creature.

I have tons of concepts remaining and I thoroughly love all these characters, but I don’t want this post to be too long!! I adore expanding on unexplored areas of Destiny lore and I wish I had the time to make content for my ideas!!

Thank you again for the question and I hope I adequately answered it!! Light be with you too!!

[utilitycaster]

What are some of your favourite podcasts / podcast recs?

It's hard to pick a favorite though I will say at the moment Midst is the one I think I look forward to the most, so I'm just going to go through basically all podcasts I currently or relatively recently previously listened to and sort them by rough genre. Note that as with all recommendation requests it helps to know the vibe of what you're going for and what's important to you (I know I just was like hey I'll take most music recs but the commitment for music is like the length of a song, whereas podcasts/books/movies/tv are a bit more time put in)

Actual Play:

Longtime listener of NADDPod and TAZ which I'm guessing if you follow me you are broadly aware of but if not feel free to ask more; I also post about Worlds Beyond Number enough that you might know what it is. I checked out Burnt Cookbook party a while ago both because I liked Jenna Stoeber's work with Polygon and because someone asked me for Actual Play podcast-only recs with more than one woman or nb player that weren't RQG and I was like oh I should find some. Anyway it's quite good! it's definitely lower production values than bigger podcasts but the plot is highly original and really good, the vibes are fantastic, the characters are a lot of fun, and all in all worth checking out. I also do listen to the Re-Slayer's Take which I've really enjoyed! Everyone's good but while I was familiar with (and a fan of) Jasmine Bhullar and Jasper William Cartwright's work, Jasmine Chiong as Farah speaks to the Grouchy Old Hunter Woman fan in me and has been a personal standout. It is very heavily edited, which does take some getting used to. Also, I mentioned RQG (Rusty Quill Gaming). It comes with the caveat of "very good but slow to start and then doesn't really stick the landing, imo, though the epilogues help" but I can recommend with that warning.

Scripted Fiction

Camlann. Modern post-apocalyptic Arthuriana/Folklore of the British Isles, with some hints of other folklore as well. 1 season; hoping they get funding for a second because it was very well done and also I want Gwen and Morgan to kiss.

Midst. Hard to describe but if you follow me you've seen a lot of posts that might help. Extremely good! About to finish in a bit over a week's time! Check it out and I advice you check out the first 3 episodes at once to get a feel for it; the three-narrator thing is also "get used to it and it will be fine".

The Penumbra Podcast. Originally envisioned as an anthology podcast but then two specific settings (noir-y space opera and medieval court monster hunters) were very popular. Also nearing its end.

The Silt Verses. Quite literally everything on this list would be described as "New Weird" and "has queer characters" and this is maybe the New Weirdest. Anyway, set in a world where gods are real, require human sacrifice to live, and society is both very complicit and also uses the gods to sell shit. I think people who are mad about D20 or CR not being explicitly political enough should listen to it. Extremely good. Also in its endgame, but they've had a very drawn out schedule as of late.

Welcome to Night Vale. You are on Tumblr; presumably you know the drill. I can't say I'm like...super following what happens but it's one of those things that's been a constant in my life for over a decade and takes up a very pleasant hour-ish per month. This feels like damning with faint praise but the earlier stuff was great and it's still strong, it's just, you know, the inevitable slowness of an indefinitely long slice-of-life-ish show vs. the more plot-driven ones above.

Within the Wires. By one of the Night Vale Creators. I have a post about it but it's set on an alternate history Earth where a cataclysmic war/plague/various other bad things absolutely destroyed the population in the early 1900s, leading to a very different global society. Some people say the seasons are very uneven in quality. They are incorrect. The seasons follow different people and all are in the form of found audio, so they are all quite different, but it's entirely a matter of personal preference if you like a season or not; it's not that some are Objectively Better.

Wolf 359 finished a long time back and I haven't relistened since my original listen in like...2018, but of "podcasts that have finished" it's worth it. Weird space stuff.

Informative(?)

Home Cooking by Hrishikesh Hirway and Samin Nosrat; was a pandemic project that now only airs yearly, really, but worth checking out if you like cooking.

I found out about Home Cooking via Song Exploder, which is just Hrishikesh Hirway talking about songs. Great podcast; the editing is fascinating and I have found a lot of good music from it!

I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats. Has only two seasons but they are both very good if you like The Mountain Goats as a band.

No Such Thing as a Fish: the QI (British quiz show) (if you're British you know this better than I do) researches talk about weird facts and riff on them.

Sawbones: Justin McElroy and his wife Dr. Sydnee Smirl McElroy talk about weird medical history and dumb wellness trends on tiktok. This is one of the earliest podcasts I subscribed to back when I did not drive nearly as much.

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. Has also completed and there's a book that's basically covering the same ground. It's not like, purely informative; it's very anecdotal (as is I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats) but I learned a lot from it.

Honorable mention: I just didn't have the time or energy to keep up with Ologies by Alie Ward but what I listened to was fun and interesting and my sibling is a big fan.

Comedy and Miscellany:

Beef and Dairy Network: also British, on the Max Fun network with the McElroys. Fucking weird. I debated putting this in the scripted fiction because it's basically "what if Welcome to Night Vale was a little less story focused but still had throughlines and was specifically about the cattle industry in some absurdist alternate version of our world" but stuck with comedy bc the absurdity outstrips the plot. It's weird!

My Brother, My Brother, and Me: you probably know this one; either you love it or you don't.

My Dad Wrote a Porno: also British and from what I understand a bigger deal over there. Has uh. reached completion, in that they decided they were done, but the books apparently go on (sorry Rocky I'm not buying them). A guy and his two good friends read and roast his father's self-published erotica e-books about Belinda Blumenthal, Pots and Pans saleswoman, ft. bad accents, corporate espionage, and, of course, The Duchess.

The Empty Bowl: Justin McElroy and Dan Goubert of Cerealously's ASMR podcast about cereal. legitimately has helped me calm down when anxious at night. I am not even a big cereal eater it's just entertaining and chill.

Anyway any other podcasts I have listened to I've either forgotten, weren't good enough to recommend, just disappeared without any conclusion [*cough* king falls am] or involve way more reservations than I am willing to go into without knowing more about what you are looking for.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Also, if I may ask, what exactly is Dragon Age? I'd never heard of it before following your blog, and I know very little about it outside of what you've said about it.

I know I could probably just look it up, but that's not nearly as fun as listening to a friend's rambles.

Okay first of all I'm so sorry for the person I've become, and the person I continue to become as we get closer to and eventually arrive at the release of the new game on Halloween. (Context: it has been a decade since the last game. Nine years for me, as I got into the fandom in the time between the release of the last game and the release of its final DLC.)

The basic explanation is: western fantasy RPG series where the player character gathers up a group of companions to do anything from save the world to survive living in the worst city in the world. The real strength of the series is getting everyone obsessed with the companion characters, who, depending on your choices, you can be friends or enemies with, even as you continue to work together, and maybe you'll fall in love or they'll break your heart or you break their heart. I got dumped by a god. I nearly got dumped by a bastard prince who I encouraged to become king. My witch wife left me and I had to go on a long journey to find her. I almost went for a sacrifice ending and then cried so hard saying goodbye to my elf assassin boyfriend (we met when he was hired to kill me) that I reloaded and made a bunch of different choices.

The other strength is the roleplaying choices that you can make to shape your own character to get obsessed with, and then continue to add lore to them in your head until you're making them in the Sims just because you love them, or have an AU where they work at Subway. Real things I have done.

What else... I think another thing the games do well is in the worldbuilding and lore, and specifically in ambiguity in those things. The first game, Dragon Age: Origins, has the PC and companions fighting to save their country from what's basically a zombie apocalypse. The zombies, called darkspawn, have toxic blood that, if a person is infected, will lead them to a gruesome, agonizing death. In the course of the game, you learn more about how darkspawn are ""born"" - they're not 1:1 pop culture zombies, it's just the best comparison to start with - but... where did they come from in the first place? Why do they exist? The Church has an answer, but the Church is very fallible. You uncover new pieces of information about them in the game's DLC, and then in later games, which half-confirm and half-deny the Church's tale, but we still don't have a clear answer. Maybe we'll finally get one in the next game!

And that's just one example. The Church had a papal schism and the two branches argue about the nature of god's mortal wife - was she a mage or not, did she ascend and become divinity or not? There's a cult that thinks she was reborn as a dragon. You find what is said to be her ashes, which have miraculous healing properties. One of your companions, if killed in the temple where the ashes are housed, resurrects as a sort-of ghost. What's up with that? Who knows! We sure don't!

So, there's a lot of fun lore to chew on, and a lot of fun characters to get obsessed with, and a lot of options for playing your own individual character and getting obsessed with them.

My favorite game of the three is Dragon Age: Origins, the first one, released in 2009. Yes, the graphics are dated, yes the combat gameplay is jank, yes it frequently crashes for some people (there are workarounds), yes there's a weird amount of sexism and some of that is trigger-warning worthy (something to keep in mind for anyone who wants to check it out), but I've played it... five, six times? Half of those as the same character, making the same choices, and yet it seems like every time I play, I find something new hidden away somewhere. A character sidequest I didn't unlock because they didn't like me enough. An NPC sidequest somewhere that I didn't explore well enough.

There's different background options for the character you create, and each of them gives you an "origin story" sequence to play. Usually only an hour or two before you hit the convergence point of the main story, but it dramatically shapes the way you see the locations and characters that you'll return to later in the story. A random merchant that a human noble PC passes by is an old friend for a dwarven noble PC. A random elf that a mage PC finds locked up in prison is the beloved cousin of the city elf PC. A random ambush by darkspawn holds a devastating reunion for the nomadic elf PC. A two-line encounter with a random woman is a lot more for the commoner dwarf PC, because that is their sister who's finally gotten away from their abusive mother. The PC is unvoiced in Origins, but that means there's more dialogue options to choose from than for the other games, which really helps me define the character I'm playing. And as a person who loves to make OCs (you know what I have going on for Pokemon), that's a big big plus.

The other games are good, too - I actually started with Dragon Age 2, and came back to Origins, because that's what I was recommended, and I think it was good because the combat felt so much better in 2, and once I was hooked on the world, I could go back to Origins. But there's something about Origins that makes me a big shill for it.

The Dragon Age fandom is, uh, contentious. If you - or anyone else here - ever want to check out the games, my recommendation is to look at cool art, make a few friends who are chill, and stay away from the radioactive discourse meltdowns that always seemed to be happening when the fandom was more active. I know lots of fandoms are toxic trashbins, I stay in a little corner to dodge that. But Dragon Age is. the fandom is special. Here's a parody post about what it's like.

But I really do love Dragon Age, and I've made some good friends, and I've had a lot of fun, and I'm very excited for the new game, and I am, again, very very sorry for the person I'm becoming.

[ofsilentthings]

'The Vampire Ascendant's Wife', a Postmortem

Just some writer thoughts about finishing my longest fanfiction to date!

Thank you for reading and commenting/leaving kudos.

Data and Commentary below~

I started it October 13, 2023 and finished it May 27, 2024.

With 138,915 words it is the longest fic I have ever written.

Each chapter averaged 6945 words. (Though the largest was like 13000 words.) This is unusual for me and I think going forward I'll try to keep each chapter shorter.

Inspiration:

I was inspired mainly by Dracula - mainly by wanting Jonathan Harker and Dracula kiss. Why a two hundred year gap? An arbitrary number but not really - it's how long Astarion was under Cazador's control (give or take a few decades). Besides providing a nice parallel, it was a funny reference to this line from the game:

Astarion: I'll make you pay for everything you've ever done to me! Cazador: I've known you for two hundred years! Haven't I suffered enough?

Planning:

For such a long fic as this, I do a lot of planning. I like to do a vague outline of where I want the fic to go (or even the themes I want to touch upon). When I get to specific chapters I break them down by scenes or even beats. I also did a lot of background planning. I had to know how Rickard could believably raise the performance of three businesses and quickly. I had to know how Astarion was going to become Archduke. And I had to figure out how to make Rickard fall in love with Taviana AND Astarion. Manipulating all these plots was difficult and part of the fun challenge but I think I did okay. Funny enough Henrik's death was not meant to be such a plot point; it was only supposed to be a way to force Rickard into the spotlight. I never intended Henrik to show up himself.

Successes:

I really love Rickard. I love his journey from nervous uncertain man meeting Astarion to the first time, to the last encounter when he tells him the truth and slaps him. I liked my Taviana who balanced over the line of loving and hating Astarion. I liked Astarion, since it was in a slightly different filter than most fics I've seen: one that is not new to power, but complacent. Realities of life (becoming poor) forced him to reach out to new opportunities, mainly Rickard. Whether he was ultimately changed by his time with his chamberlain is dependent upon the ending you prefer.

I think the multiple plots worked for the most part. The financials and social climbing reflected the intimacy of the three main characters, and vice versa. Also I managed to use an auction as a main plot device so that's fun to me.

Failures:

Vaida and her crew did not get a satisfactory ending. I toyed with having Astarion kill her in the final plot chapter but I worried that if Rickard saw that he would be much more antagonistic towards Astarion and not even try to talk to him.

I wish I had given a bit more attention to the businesses towards the end; however the focus on the story had obviously shifted to the three of them so I think its okay. A part of me thinks Astarion's megolomania should have been toned down a little bit, at least to show that he was listening to Rickard, even when he was angry. But I think that's a very minor point that I'd fuss over no matter what.

'Extra features':

Taviana was going to ask Rickard to kill Astarion. But Rickard does not have D&D player levels (A level 0 commoner), so he wouldn't have a chance.

I considered going a power route and having Ilmater himself get involved, making Rickard a Chosen, perhaps a super-powered monk, but again that was a bit more action-oriented than I wanted to go. It also seemed to take away from the personal strength of Rickard. Why should he stand up to Astarion when he can get the power of a god and punch the Ascendant into the sun?

Rickard was going to be kidnapped by undead inside the Ancunin estate during a grand party; that didn't work because I needed Astarion's house to be '''safe''' so that's why it was out in the streets. Part of Rickard's contract was going to include a clause that, at the end of a year (or some other time), Taviana would have the choice to leave Astarion or stay. I decided to omit that simply for simplicity sake. She's a Consort, she never could leave, even if she wanted to.

I had planned on Astarion creating a crisis of undead attacking the undead in waves. He would then 'bring them down' and be seen as a hero. But then I remembered Mystic Carrion probably still would exist and so he had a natural enemy. Taviana Lovers: Loghain, Nicollus, Marius, Elliot, Imogen. Astarion Lovers: Ellyndia, Millicent, Vero, Mathias, Morgan, Andromeda, Irenica, Miriam, Henrik (most of these are video game characters or D&D/original characters) In a similar vein: Absoleth, Sylene, and Lady Murasaki are some of my D&D characters. Jack Jekyllsby Hamstead is one of my husband's characters. Yes, even the boots. Garu is one of my friend's D&D characters.

What's next?

Who knows? I need a mental break. I am busy with a family, a job, and a life and writing so much takes time from that. I want to enjoy the up coming Elden Ring DLC as well as FF14's Dawntrail. I want to read a bunch of books and be inspired. I want to do some painting. I'm even going to start up a Curse of Strahd D&D game (someone has to DM...) But I'll always come back to writing. I love it too much not to. So expect some one-shots, maybe? I am looking at some crossovers as well (Astarion and Micolash WILL BE A THING, there's too much about blood and ascension between them to ignore). Thank you, thank you, thank you lovely readers, each one of you.

[et-cant-phone-home-no-signal]

The Last of Us HBO - Episode 1 thoughts

Warning: Pure yapping ahead, just my thoughts and things I've noticed whilst watching, it's not serious and I don't invite arguments (fellow yappers however are more than welcome)

(these make sense in the way that i wrote this as i watched so it's all chronological, this is my bday gift to all of you lol. spoilers under the cut)

Love the opening, gives a lot of the context you'd get from the opening credits of the game in a way that's easy to follow and understand for a new audience (using my mum as an example, she knows nothing about this show other than me telling her it's a zombie show - her only experience with that is the walking dead vaguely so her expectations were mid, but even she told me it's easy to understand and actually makes more sense irl compared to TWD)

The whole pandemic stuff really just hits different after COVID doesn't it

The whole climate change thing mentioned is so real, and I know this is written for modern times by modern writers, but for them to set that idea up in a 60s show is very eye-opening

The silence + stillness of the host and audience, the camera angles chosen, it's so good and unsettling in a very inconspicuous way, bravo

I wonder why they chose to change it from 2013 to 2003. Don't get me wrong I'm okay with it, and it's fun to relate to seeing a bunch of familiar things from my own childhood (lack of smartphones, older decor, easy clothing style etc), but it's a decade difference and I wonder why? Is it to make it more relatable for us that the majority of the show is set in 2023? Are we meant to connect to that more, as we've just had our own pandemic and this is a more intense fallout that we could have had if the nature of COVID had been slightly different? Maybe I'm overthinking it

The details in Sarah's room 👌 the posters, the box TV (such nostalgia), the pictures of her and friends, of her and Joel, ribbons and trophies from winning soccer tournaments, the hung up doodle paper, fairy lights, soft pink walls, it's so comfy and lived in, girly but completely her own space :') reminds me a bit of my childhood bedroom tbh, messy but comfortably so

I love that she knows her dad won't wake up so she knocks and calls because yeah, that's what you do when your dad is a deep sleeper

The contrast with Joel's room immediately after, the details there too - the old boombox cd player, fan up and running, messy dresser with slightly open drawers, the most Texas art on the walls (come on, music, deer and a tacos and beer poster?), blue walls, a hamper filled to the brim, a fucking treadmill?? Joel, your plant on the bedside table is long deceased I'm begging you to chuck it and release it from its misery 💀

(Something my mum noted, was that Sarah is wearing her natural curly hair, which mum said "it's rare to see that, in 2003 at least", to which I replied "maybe not in America?" because fr we are European and there's many cultural differences between the USA and other countries. Mum noticed it and she grew up in the Netherlands as a 60s kid. Me personally, I didn't think too much on it because it didn't click that might be odd to see someone wear natural hair, but I also admit I grew up in small villages and towns in more rural areas of Scotland and the Netherlands, so I didn't see much diversity in people growing up until like high school, but I consumed an insane amount of media such as Doctor Who and that's always been a very diverse show. Anyway, just a little thing that was noticed, I love Sarah's hair)

The domesticity :') Joel forgetting the pancake mix (good thing too), going straight for coffee, Sarah insisting on orange juice, his utter disgust at drinking it

"Gonna have to wear diapers soon." "Who says I don't already?" 💀

IS THAT DIDO PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND??? ULTIMATE WIN (I fucking love Dido, the song playing is White Flag)

"Shell." "Calcium." *pushes egg through teeth* "Lovely." stop it oh my god

Family banter, I'm eating this shit up so bad y'all, uncle Tommy <3

The Jakarta detail 👌👌

Pedro with a Texan accent is mwah

I like the detail of Sarah's name being on her bag, I had the same as a kid but my mum would sew it into the top of my bag instead, sometimes on the outside sometimes on the inside. I feel like that's not a safe thing to do anymore but it was so normal when I was a kid

Wish I could write an essay on Joel's drawer but instead I'll just say I love that Sarah is comfortable enough at home to just, go into her dad's room and grab stuff from his dresser, and know Joel won't be mad about it :) healthy home relationship

I wonder if the knife has any crazy significance? I don't remember seeing that knife ever again, unless it's just foreshadowing to Ellie's knife

I swear, them constantly avoiding baked goods is so genius (no pancakes, no cake, no biscuits, they don't eat the cookies later, it's small and clever)

Joel throwing Sarah under the bus like that to the neighbours had both me and mum cackling

Joel "no smoking in the truck" Miller

The desert storm detail is an interesting addition to Tommy's character, and at this stage, it's open whether this is about Joel or Tommy since we don't know who's truck it is (just because Tommy is driving doesn't mean it's his, after all, Joel has a garage)

The details in the school are fun, but idk if that's a normal American school thing to have pictures of the presidents and founding father up or not, I honestly will assume it is since there's also a big ass USA flag in the corner

THE PAPERMATE INKJOY PEN!!! I USED TO HAVE THOSE!!! Damn the small details are so fucking popping

This part is wonderful - where the fuck did they source that many different and fun clocks from and where can I get them?

"20." "That's it?" "Okay, 30." "20's good."

The build up is fantastic, it works for fans and for newcomers alike - all these things like the police all day and other things previously mentioned, the lady ushering her out as quickly as possible, all the people that were outside eating and enjoying the food stands are suddenly gone and the street is silent

The whole Jesus spiel, good lord, feels very Texas in the 2000s (and still tbh, let's be real)

Sarah's face when Mrs Adler says "raisin" is SUCH a fat mood my god this kid is funny

Nanna no 💀 (that fucking grandma is FREAKY as FUCK, outstanding detail)

Mercy knows. Animals always know.

Thank god Joel forgot the cake

Pedros funny little facial expression absolutely kill me, adds such dimension to Joel as a father

Super satisfying to hear the game dialogue ngl, especially that funny little bit with the watch

It's so interesting to see Joel has always struggled with his emotions and verbalising them - the small "thank you", not looking at her, rather looking down at the watch itself, fiddling with it - he's trying but he's never been good with feelings

Joel SNATCHING that dvd like, damn son, it's not going anywhere 😭😂 it's cute to see him so excited about it though, Sarah knows what he likes, even if she's not interested in it at all

The instant sofa snuggle :')

"Don't fall asleep." "Of course I won't, it's too riveting." *Cuts to Sarah fast asleep*

The phone 💀 I remember us having a phone like that, whole ass protection sleeve and all

This extra detail of Joel having to bail Tommy out just adds so much more depth to the dynamic and I'm here for it, also explains why the fuck Joel wasn't in the house at 2am (that always bothered me a bit about the game)

Joel loves his daughter so much,,,, the gentle way he puts her in bed, shoes and all, covering her up with her blanket, little kiss on the head,,,,, I'm already in pain for what's to come

Mercy my sweet baby <3 what a good dog, so scared :(

The show really captured that out of sync feeling when something like this happens - nothing crazy yet, just utter confusion and mild panic creeping in because this isn't normal but nothing seems to be happening yet

Mercy said "peace ✌��� I'm out"

This girl is braver than me, I wouldn't have walked through the door - but that being said I haven't had close neighbours like this in years so maybe it's just that they're very close and she feels comfortable doing so

Oh that's fucked UP dude, Sarah downright walking into cannibal town that's so disturbing (fantastic acting and special effects all around)

The cordyceps special effects are so fucking visceral and disgusting, that out of the mouth?? Grim!! Love how they did this

Love the amount of game dialogue and referencing we get in this particular part - "You take 71-" "71, I know.", the whole car conversation, "That's Jimmy's place" (I know in the game Jimmy is the neighbour and it's Louis'farm that's on fire but the reference stands), most of the camera work being fixed on Sarah or from Sarah's perspective in the back, "They got a kid Joel." "So do we, keep driving. Somebody else'll come along.", just a fucking well done scene tbh

This whole part in the car from Sarah's POV absolutely invokes the same anxiety I felt when playing this bit of the game, totally made me feel like I'm in the truck with them and it's scary (scary good)

I was so thrown off by the fact that they avoided the car crash that I wasn't expecting the alternative that they chose instead 💀 like shit??? A whole ass plane??? Love that they did the eerie music to black thing though that was great

Nico honestly just stole my whole heart as Sarah she got all the fucking expressions down, the panic, the way she talks, the pained sounds, love it 10/10 casting imo

The instant reaction time on Joel and getting Sarah out of the way of that car was NUTS like, I rewatched that part multiple times just to see how quickly he switched them around goddamn

Pedro and Nico are a fantastic father daughter duo 👌

Joel pushing Sarah's head under his chin more so she doesn't look 🥺

The infected actors are fucking amazing, terrifying dedication to the role

Oh no I'm about to cry so hard guys

Sarah 😭😭😭 her whimpers make me so fucking upset this scene is so fucking sad

On a genuine note, Nico did an outstanding job of channeling the desperation from the game, and so did Pedro and Gabriel - Tommy's choked up "Joel" and look of utter defeat and grief is absolutely heartbreaking

Joel holding his dead daughter in his arms, rocking her like a baby, crying out for her to please please be okay...... Yeah

The set for the front of the Boston QZ 🙌

It's so telling that the first thing we see FEDRA do is lie to a child and kill her when they promised she was gonna be okay. They promised they were gonna feed her and get her toys, and that the medicine would help her. They told her that she was safe. And they killed her.

Having Joel be the one to throw her into the fire, holding her the same way he held Sarah, was such poignant choice - how a man can change over 20 years

The Boston details - the set itself, the extras, the shoelaces for ration cards, the covering up of the firefly logo, the sheer amount of FEDRA guards everywhere

Ah yes, the return of public hangings, my favourite 🫠

Interesting to see Joel "smuggler and dealer" Miller, something we didn't get much of in the game tbh

Tess <3

Robert is so slimy eugh

I love that we get to see more of Tess outside of her and Joel, it builds more of a picture of who she is besides just Joel's smuggle partner - also love the amazing bruise makeup they did for her, looks super real and painful

The fireflies actively causing mayhem in the QZ is also a great added detail! We see it a bit in game but I enjoy the constant references to it as well

Bella as Ellie is god tier damn they're so good - snarky as FUCK

Joel just, skipping the fucking line without giving a shit, no one stopping him

"When I'm sleeping, Gabriela listens, or my son. The smart one, not the other one, god bless him." 💀😂😭

I love that Joel has a secret stash in his apartment

Ah yes, drugs and alcohol, the remedy to all

The watch 😭

Liking the music and camera usage in this scene, makes me feel like I'm high myself

Tess just coming in, scooting Joel over in bed and being the big spoon 🙌 the tender way in which she slides her arm over his waist and he grabs her hand in his 😭

The jarring cut to it being day and him lying down alone, pheww

The way Joel is instantly awake and ready to fucking go when he sees Tess' face 🫠

Enjoy how we get Tess saying how absolutely terrified Robert is of Joel, that he needs to take a breath and go slow, but reassures him she still wants to fuck him up - Tess is handling Joel like an spooked animal, gently and with care

Marlene's casting is fantastic 👌 - JUST CLOCKED THAT THE REASON WHY I FELT THAT IMMEDIATELY IS BECAUSE MERLE VOICED MARLENE IN GAME, NO WONDER I INSTANTLY FELT SHE WAS RIGHT!! I recognised her voice without clocking it

I enjoy the changes made to Marlene from the game, she feels more real here, more brutal, this is a rebellion leader who is aware shit isn't going well, it's refreshing - we're seeing more of the inner workings of the firefly situation in Boston

I think it's cute that they still have shitty bars and stuff, humans desire connection and community so much they'll make the best out of whatever they got

"You tell me to 'look for the light' and I'll break your jaw." SLAY LOL

This insight into Ellie's treatment and her relationship with Marlene is really interesting - it's more context which I always enjoy

"You my fucking mom or something?" "Do I look like your mom?" "Nooo, you do not." 😂

First Riley mention, time to feel sad!

With more thought, the "he's here" is probably about Robert! Didn't think much on that before

Detail notice - love how hair and makeup department did Tess and Joel's graying hairs, it looks really good and natural. I read some comments ages ago that Joel's hair is too silver in some spots, but I raise to you my mum in defence, who went grey quite early (she started in her late 30s) and has beautiful silver highlights naturally between the darker hairs. If my mum ever finds out I've posted that online, she'll probably kill me, but then she shouldn't have genetically given me her terrible eyesight 😌 consider it retaliation

The wall body is so grotesque and beautiful, it reminds me a bit of Annihilation (if you haven't seen that movie, I recommend! Fantastic music and visual effects)

*Joel rambles about the building structure* "This has been 'Construction Corner' with Joel Miller." got me creasing lmao they're so snarky and funny

Man I wonder wtf happened, like, did Robert try to scam them so bad they had a shootout?? Crazy

"So this is who Robert screwed us over with? The Che Guevara of Boston?" tells me everything I need to know about Marlene

The shootout stance oooooohhsggsg

Kim and her missing ear 💀

I like the way they get the Ellie job in the show, it works really well

"Really? That fast?" crying lmao

There's clearly more history between Tommy, Marlene and Joel and I know it's because Tommy was a firefly but man what I wouldn't give for a series on the 20 years between this and 2003!!! I'd play a whole game of that!!! I wanna know what happened, in detail!!

Something that bothers me: they're soaked, their shoes are squelching, yet the floor is bone dry after they walk in 😭

I love how smart and inquisitive Ellie is, all the small things she notices and picks up on

Love the same dialogue but different way of delivering it from the game, refreshing as fuck

Ellie's a sassy little shit ain't she (I love her)

I find it constantly funny that cars and shit are still used after 20 years because y'all, gasoline has a shelf life of like 3-6 months and diesel about a year if they're stored correctly with stabilisers, so, why are vehicles used so much?? Where are they getting their gasoline from?? Yes I am aware you can make bio-gas out of plants but it's a complicated process and do you really think FEDRA is out here with greenhouses for gasoline? No me neither

Tess is actually so fucking lovely in regards to Ellie, like, mom mode detected - also love how it's Tess that takes the lead

I can feel my own back protesting at seeing them squat walk, yikes

Ellie gripping Tess' hand for support 😭💕

Joel's flashback due to the light - him beating that guy to fucking death because he's already lost one daughter to a soldier before, and he may not even like Ellie yet but he'll be damned if he lets another little girl die at the barrel of a gun like that

Ellie's face, like she wants to be scared of Joel but shit, that guy just killed a FEDRA soldier to protect her and you can see the admiration in her eyes, but the fear is there too

The radio at the end - we know Bill and Frank aren't alright but at this stage we don't know what exactly that means

The final shot of the iconic towers at the end, an infected screaming on the roof - fucking poetry

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading!! It's literally just my running thought process whilst watching!! Do you agree with some of my notes, was there anything you noticed that i didn't? Comments and reblogs welcome <3

Episode 2 thoughts:

Episode 3 thoughts:

[isas-oc-asylum]

Break, failure, ghost, and midnight for Bella for the ask game because I've been struck by sudden brainrot

OH FUN

break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

Easy. She's experienced this to a degree before, when her adoptive mother was murdered by Envy. The easiest way to break Bella or force her to bend her knee to you is to threaten her loved ones while being too powerful for her to rip to shreds. Harm or kill her family, she's mentally done for.

And it's ugly. Back when severe turmoil was a consistent thing for her, she would cut in horrific quantities all over her body. At its worst, she'd hole up in her room, refusing to see anyone but Kiddo, refusing to eat because she'd have no appetite. At one point, after her adoptive mother's murder, she started sneaking out (huge nono for House history trauma reasons) at night and inciting fights in the city. She was desperate for any quick outlet to relieve herself of such intense anguish.

Kiddo has 100% seen her at her worst. There's probably some other OG house residents who have too, but Kiddo has seen it at its most raw. He's held her as she's scream-cried and bled from the most recent self-harm wounds, he's braved her early sanity lapses despite the high likelihood of being seriously injured, he's risked unknown damage to himself while embracing madness to help her fight with Insanity when they were still struggling with the fusion of their souls. There is NOTHING he wouldn't do for her, and no breakdown too intense for him to be at her side for.

failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?

There might be something I've forgotten after 10 years of her going through one horror after another, but tbh I don't think anything I might be blanking on compares to how she's failed herself. She used to do herself so dirty with her self destructive tendencies, the severity just simply pales anything else I could come up with.

And ofc everyone that lives in the House knows Of it, if not physically there for that era. I don't know if I'd say she's moved past it, but she's been clean from self harm for *does math* roughly a decade, if not exactly that long? (screams and sobs because oh my god the passage of time, I'm so proud of my GIRL)

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

God, does she have many of those. Her father haunts her, not literally. His murder (and previously her mother's presumed murder) broke her at the ripe age of FIVE. She's been hurting herself over it from then until she stopped a decade ago. The only thing that had her clean (for a handful of years I'm not gonna bother to math out rq) was Blake begging her to find a healthier way to cope. That ended up being her Promise(tm) to her parents that she'd never EVER let another loved one die. Which,,, sometimes did just as much if not more harm to her than herself. But ultimately did unquantifiable amounts of good too.

Lucifer haunts her too, no doubt. After 5 or so years of living in fear, making plans like a doomsday prepper, being hypervigilant and keeping everyone she even mildly cared about as close as she possibly could, you don't just.. unlearn that forever, let alone forget it or move on from it completely. Especially when the way it ended gave,, no closure. It just Was Over, unexpectedly.

And those preparations, that paranoia, her promise, and the occasional bouts of self-harm are how she lived with her ghosts. She carries them with her with infinitely more grace and self-preservation now. Her promise is going strong, and now she has the confidence of a fully realized demigod (as well as the actual godly ancestor that Makes her such) to help her live with them too.

midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

Oh you fucking bet your ass she does. Lucifer and everything to do with him especially keeps her up. Some of the things the Sins did before becoming House refugees themselves still mess with her. She is RIDDLED with PTSD and by extension nightmares and anxiety. But she's long since learned how to live with them by now.

A great example of this was Kiddo's kidnapping at 14 which resulted in her and Insanity being cursed together. The two of them CANNOT sleep without each other now, at all, ever. They HAVE to sleep in the same bed, holding each other.

On nights she can't sleep, she lays in his arms, listening to his breathing & heartbeat and sometimes testing if he'll sleep mumble to her. Kiddo has always been and will always be her safe place. If she really can't bear to just lay there awake, she'll probably try listening to music, or she'll let him know she's getting up to go check in on their kids. Thankfully she's formed some healthier habits over the last decade.

[pizzatrocious]

So! With the end of this wonderful little event, I do have a bit of a bittersweet announcement.

I'll still be around here and there on a low-effort multimuse I plan to make a while from now... but, save for any light activity you'll still see from me, I plan on retiring from writing.

I'm not retiring for any bad reasons, quite the opposite! But as someone that's been writing on Tumblr for roughly... 14 years? I think I've done most of what I've wanted to do. Every kind of thread you can imagine, every type of character, and every type of genre. For the past few years I've jumped blogs A LOT, but really only because I loved chasing whatever next big thing felt fun to write.

I was here when ask blogs were the standard instead of RP blogs, regardless of whether or not the mun could draw. I remember my first ever Bowser RP blog, iconless and full of crack on a classic Redux theme. I unfortunately remember the Homestuck and Danganronpa craze, and an era where icons were a semi-new novelty that only the 'fancy' blogs used. I remember back when a majority of the Pokemon RPC was a fairly popular crack group that, at its peak, had 300~ active blogs all at once.

I remember the Splatoon Marie roleplayer that chased after me, even when I'd socially isolate myself during the darkest spots of my life, and the Rosalina blog she made later down the line. You might know her now as my wife, Rosie. Funny to think, our more popular duo wound up being Peach and Bowser.

I remember all the different iterations of the Smash RPCs, and all the people that rocked the community with every post. Then there was the Sonic RPC, a place that was almost torn apart by an awful person's hold on the community, only to rise from the ashes! That RPC's pretty quiet nowadays, but those guys may as well be sleeper agents for Sonic content.

Then there's the people I affectionately call 'The Elder Gods'. The ones that, despite being here over a DECADE, they still dedicate themselves to the same characters they always have. They're usually the ones with the ancient-looking blogs that go largely under-the-radar nowadays, but they're the foundation that built these writing communities. You guys mostly just keep to yourselves nowadays, but I see you.

And of course, my good ol' kindred spirits, the people that roleplay the most obscure, hyper-specific characters. Those one-off indie games, obscure shows, characters stuck to a spinoff title or are just dubiously canon, or characters with basically no canon that they've made into their own!

Of course, that's not to forget the people that take the big popular characters, and absolutely ROCK them in a way that makes the character all their own. Gotta toot my own horn, considering one of my old Bowser blogs had a couple thousand followers.

I could go on, and on, and on... but long story short, I've had a great time here.

Part of me never wants to stop, to be honest. But in all this time, I've become a different person. My hobbies have changed, my interests have changed, I'm a completely different person now! But I've also always been a stubborn creature of habit, never wanting to give anything up.

As a result of being anchored to my old habits so long, I'm left a little at a loss for what I want in life. More and more I've felt like a caged animal, just circling around my little enclosure and doing the same things over and over for enrichment. Add to that the usual struggles of adult life being rough and expensive, and you can imagine wanting to spend more of my time on survival is a factor too.

Nobody's gonna know what I really want now, except for me. I need to get out there and do some soul-searching. Find new hobbies, make new friends, experience new things... who knows what I'll be doing a year from now!

That said, I give my genuine, most heartfelt thank you to everyone I've ever crossed paths with in throughout all of the Tumblr RPCs I've been in. Honestly, the only reason I don't list off names is purely because I want to make sure nobody gets left out of my little expression of gratitude. You all know who you are, anyway.

I wish I could've known some of you a little better... but that's just life, isn't it? Sometimes the most impactful people in your lives are the ones you never get to really know. I'm sure I've gotten to be that person for my own fair share of people, with how reclusive I tend to be.

Again, this isn't goodbye. I mean, I'd be a little embarrassed if people thought I was gone forever, only for me to pop up a week or two later. This is a hobby I've always loved, I'll always find my way back to it. I'll always be lurking about, sometimes posting during funny shenanigans. Like I said at the start of this post, I plan on making a private, low-effort multimuse! Mostly I'll just use it to keep tabs on my friends and the writers I really enjoy seeing, but I still have a small list of characters I'd like to play around with a little.

Otherwise though, it's time to leave the nest and try other things.

Thank you again. This is Vincent, signing off.

[captainstressed]

so i gave jemily a whirl. based on the scene from the first episode with the team playing party games at PG's for her birthday. Emily's here this time, fun ensues.

this was a pretty quick write so mistakes etc are all me. no real spoilers. garvez if you squint because i couldn't help myself.

Spin the bottle.

Penelope was feeling wonderfully buzzed. She couldn’t remember the last time they had all gotten together and shared an evening of drinks and laughs, and on her birthday no less! So much had happened within the last few months, to her as well as her friends and it finally felt as though things were calming down.

Luke had stood, empty wine bottle in hand to assumedly switch it for another bottle from her kitchen.

“Ok my loves, the night is young and so am I.”

Penelope spoke with a grin, holding out a hand to Luke and wiggling her fingers at the bottle in his hand. He tilted the bottle to show her it was empty which earned him an eye roll.

“Just give me the bottle.”

He did, in spite of his suspicion to what she had planned, before moving empty handed to her kitchen to grab another bottle.

She set the bottle down on the table and started making room, shuffling the remnants of their previous game into the bowl. Penelope was fully aware that all eyes were on her but she worked in silence, finally laying the bottle on its side in the middle of the table.

“Time for a new game.”

Amused laughter filled the room, Penelope looked at each of her friends and dared any of them to back out of playing.

“So, as we’re all,”

Penelope paused for a moment to grasp the right term. They were a mixed bunch; a widower, a recent divorcee and victims of failed relationships that didn’t reach past a few months had them all currently in the same boat.

“Sixteen years old?”

If she had anything nearby that wasn’t likely to make more mess in her apartment she would have thrown it at Luke, she instead settled for a glare that he brushed off with a laugh as he rejoined the group.

“Available.” She countered instead, lifting her empty wine glass for Luke to refill before he sat down.

“Penelope, if you wanted to kiss me all you had to do was ask.”

Luke had a grin she just wanted to wipe off his face, he followed it with a wink that had the other women giggling.

“In your dreams, Alvez.”

There was no bite in her words but it earned a chorus of “oooo’s” from Tara, JJ and Emily.

“This is just a bit of fun between friends.”

Dave did not look convinced but remained silent, as if he believed that by saying nothing it reduced his chances of having to spin the bottle.

“So who wants to go first?”

Luke raised his hands with a sheepish smile and shook his head, leaning back in his seat and effectively ruling himself out of the first spin. Dave gave a small nod in his direction and did the same.

“Screw it, i’ll go.”

No one was more surprised than JJ at herself. Her split was Will had been rough, taking more of a toll on her than she had let on to any of the team. Between work, the divorce and the kids this was the first time in god knows how long she felt like she could really let her hair down. So screw it.

Silently hoping it wouldn’t land on Dave; the man had been a father figure to her for well over a decade, JJ spun the bottle.

She downed what was left in her glass whilst she waited for the bottle to stop spinning. In all truth, she hadn’t given much thought about what it would be like to kiss anyone on the team. Having been with Will for as long as she had, and things had been good, great even for a very long time.

Anxiety pooled in the pit of her stomach at the thought of this potentially changing things between her and whoever the bottle stopped in front of. It was just a little fun between friends, thats what Penelope had said. Whoever it was, they would just share a quick peck and go on to laugh about it with the others.

And then the bottle stopped spinning.

In front of Emily.

At least it wasn’t Dave.

Emily was her boss. She had also been one of her best friends for almost two decades. This wouldn’t be weird. It was just a drunken kiss between friends.

No words passed between the two women, Emily was the first to lean in and JJ followed suit. The moment their lips met, JJ closed her eyes instinctually.

Having spent the last sixteen years or so with one person, only kissing that one person, kissing Emily stirred something inside her that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

There was no timer on the table but when enough time had passed that she deemed appropriate, JJ inched away ever so until she felt Emily’s tongue against the seem of her lips.

Oh.

This was different.

She tasted sweet, it was completely different to kissing Will and JJ found herself drawn further into it. Emily raised a hand to cup her cheek and she wrapped her fingers around her wrist, caressing a thumb across her pulse point that only seemed to get quicker.

It was easy to forget they were in a room with their colleagues, friends; it took someone awkwardly clearing their throat for the pair to return to the present and begrudgingly end their kiss. A chaste peck sealed the deal and they both separated, silently falling back into their seats.

It was Luke that had called attention to the fact that they were quickly swerving towards a pretty heavy make out session in Penelopes living room, a blush creeping up his neck as he tried to avoid the eye contact of either woman when they finally parted.

Silence ensued for a few moments, Dave looked about as awkward as Luke felt and Penelope looked between JJ and Emily as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t quite find the words to do so.

It was Tara who broke the tension, letting out a heavy breath followed by a laugh.

“Well damn.”

That was all it took. Emily and JJ looked at each other before joining in with the laughter, Penelope following suit. Luke gave a nervous chuckle and looked at Dave who looked as though he wasn’t quite sure how he felt.

“Who’s next?”

[blazehedgehog]

How DID FNAF get so popular in 2014? (God, that was 9 years ago.) Was it just a right place, right time thing?

A bit, yeah.

I think it's pretty clear from the popularity of Halloween that kids like to be scared (and to scare each other). There was a whole market that a lot of studios either forgot about or never tapped into.

Because, like, when you think about "horror for kids," you think about, like... Grabbed by the Ghoulies, or Luigi's Mansion, or even that one Haunted Mansion game Disney put out.

Games that are absolutely more silly than scary.

But we were in the era of the "creepypasta," which was undoubtedly dominated by kids between the ages of 13 and 18 writing about how their Sega Genesis was oozing blood or they had summoned Jeff the Killer by calling his number at 3am or whatever.

And this was after years of top Youtube Let's Players cutting their teeth on games like Amnesia and Cry of Fear. Kids were now intimately familiar with actual horror. They were hungry for sterner stuff than the typical idea of what kids could tolerate. Googly-eyed skeletons and technicolor sheet ghosts weren't cutting it anymore.

Five Nights at Freddy's was laser focused at this demographic: characters and a premise even adults find scary (uncanny animatronics turned killers) married with extremely simple gameplay that's all about building up to what is effectively somebody going "Boo!"

I currently live with my brother and his family, and he has twin sons. They're six years old. When it's time for bed, they give hugs to everyone. And when it comes time for my hug, every night for the last year, they try to sneak into my bedroom so they can jump out and shout "Boo!"

And when they do manage to surprise me (either because I play along or because they genuinely come in so quiet and secretly that I do not notice), it is one of the greatest things for them. They'll go bouncing out of my room and one will proclaim to the other "I GOT UNCLE RYAN!"

Even six year olds like the "Boo!" It's universal. The ultimate, most primal form of prank.

And despite trading in dark themes (dead children and a conspiracy to hide their deaths), there's no blood in FNAF. The violence is, at most, implied. And since the lore was deliberately obfuscated, its darker themes are gated by how deep you're willing to dive. Younger kids who might not be keen enough to figure out the easter eggs and hidden story elements are spared, whereas older kids can devour theory crafting videos until their eyes cross.

I don't necessarily think Scott Cawthon did everything deliberately. He's on the record saying FNAF was kind of a last ditch effort for him to be successful at game development, after all his other (Christian/Educational) projects were non-starters. I think certain parts of FNAF were probably more a happy accident. But he did land in the right place, at the right time, with the right game for what an audience of 13-18 year olds was most likely to connect with at the time.

And in the bigger picture, it was like the popularity of characters like The Crypt Keeper, Jason Vorhees and Freddy Kreuger finally came home to roost. Those were characters of the late 80's and early 90's that found surprising popularity with kids of the era. Growing up I was both amused and terrified of the myriad of Freddy Kreuger merchandise, and they straight up made a Tales from the Crypt saturday morning cartoon. From something that aired on HBO at 10pm and routinely had nudity and quite a bit of gore.

Even if their parents never liked it, kids have been getting scared by adult horror for decades.

Now, with FNAF, it was literally Good Christian Fun™ with enough of an edge to it that kids didn't feel like they were being talked down to.

[rxttenfish]

ive been listening to an actual play of a delta green campaign lately and they arent particularly good but are at least very watchable when i just need human voices in the background, and for context this campaign is very long with a lot of detail and takes place over several decades, plus the players have taken multi-month breaks in between seasons of the campaign.

but the dm is doing the really annoying thing of, when a player cannot remember something but their character would know it, just not telling them what it is nor reminding them. inadvertently punishing them for a very easy mistake to make in a campaign with so many tiny obtuse details like this. making it uncomfortable to unwatchable to actually have to sit through because its just not fun to see information constantly be dangled in front of your face and know you recognize it but not being allowed to know in detail any of it.

and honestly i just dont even know why dms do this. why anyone does this actually. like i understand the urge to preserve the mystery and encourage people to figure it out on their own but you can also just say "do you want me to tell you this or no", especially when theyre already positioning it from an out of character perspective of "my character should know this, please help". like ive been going through the entire campaign in all of two weeks and I dont remember this shit.

its one of those things where i just dont understand the benefit of. what benefit is there to frustrating your players and just denying them random shit because you personally feel like they should earn it. its not fun to listen to. i dont want to sit here and watch the dm get more and more high and mighty over this shit. plus its just not considering your audience, which is a thing you DO now have to consider if youre recording your games and putting them online in a fairly large production that makes you cash, and if you didnt want that then you shouldnt have recorded it in the first place. even moreso when some of these "puzzles" are actually fucking god awful and contextless and things that you would NEVER figure out on your own if you werent just told it already.

that and so many of this dms rulings are just bullshit too. like its hard to talk about them without giving specific examples, but it really feels like a perfect embodiment of people viewing the dm and the players as competing against each other when they arent and ruining the game for it.

[mosneakers]

Do you have any tips and tricks for someone (me) starting a sims story to post on Tumblr? Asking for a friend (it's me. I'm the friend)

omggg you're askin me? 🥺

I'm not sure I'm the best simblr to ask because I'm not in it for the trends or popularity; I'm all about the interaction and finding others to talk to at length about my delusional fictional universe that's been going on for over a decade now lol. But let me try:

*puts on my mother glasses* There are two ways to go about it; depending on your goals. There are plenty of exceptions, but simblr sorta has a formula you can follow. Get ready for some contradictions haha

if you aim to appease the simblr community:

reshade/gshade mixed with photo-editing is generally a must. Simblr users will gravitate to pretty pictures, so even if you're an excellent writer, people usually won't give it a second look unless something attracts them to it. The sims is pretty ugly without filters and such, and it will enhance the experience as well. Bonus if you crank up the mxao and depth of field but I prefer to take it a little easy on those lol

CC. Not necessarily a must, but simblr in particular usually hates vanilla sims. same explanation as above, slather those suckers in skin details!!

poses poses poses. readers love reading stories with poses and they spit on screenshots with only game animations! (tbh those game animations do get pretty repetitive after a while so I kinda get it)

Read stories. I'm not much of a reader personally, but there's a huge imbalance in the reader-writer ratio on simblr, and lots of simblrs will return the favor if you read theirs too. Be careful, though; getting stuck in a transactional mutualship can lead to tricky dynamics. Only reach out to other stories if you're genuinely interested in following more stories, not just to gain readers.

BUT, with all that being said, as an "elder" of the simblr community, please consider this as permission to say screw any and all of those above tips if they don't align with your goals.

If your goal is to just have fun and relax:

reshade/gshade. Because let's be real the game's graphics are very depressing. It's not actually a must if you're just enjoying yourself, but if you find the right settings and just play, so you can spend minimal or even no time editing your photos. There are lots of tutorials that explain how to set it up. If you can't figure it out or don't feel like it, that's also not a big deal.

I can be a controlling sim god when it comes to my stories, and I have most things planned out. HOWEVER sometimes it's a little fun to let the sims drive their own storylines. If something is just not working, I consider that a sign to let the story flow in a slightly different direction. IF you're planning on writing gameplay stories/writing as you go, as I do. (which has its own challenges lol)

Sometimes it can be tempting to let readers sway the way the story is going. Sometimes that is a strategy that works. But if you have a storyline that you're confident in, own it and let it play out. Even if the whole community (and your spouse) wants that alien character to go die, you have him there for a reason, trust in the power of your storytelling 😜

Despite being a pose creator, I find using poses kinda tedious and sucks the life and immersion out of the story and gameplay personally, if used too much. Trust me, I do use my fair share of them, but I do try to use the game animations whenever possible. When I do use poses, I personally prefer to keep the expressions very maxis-y.

Don't try to be like any one particular simblr. With a community where we all pull from the same CC and game pack pools, there's bound to be overlap in aesthetics, storylines, and concepts. Definitely find inspiration in all your faves but do what works best for you but don't feel some sort of way if your screenshots don't look exactly like PastelPlumbobPixelLlama's game, despite you downloading all the content and presets from their resource page! You have your own style babe and it's way more unique ♥

Post a "New Story/New simblr" post to get the word out about your story.

PLEASE don't ever get discouraged by notes because you are perfect and creative and if others don't understand your genius that's them problem ok <3

sorry it's so long ;-; there's probably more but that's what came to my mind off the bat.